RE: Lotus Elise S Cup: Review
Discussion
daytona365 said:
billzeebub said:
That looks absolutely sensational. I love the Lotus philosophy
.....Quite right when they were 800 quid new and you could knock one up in your shed, whilst their cousins were embarrassing Ferrari in formula one !!.....Must be getting old !!
daytona365 said:
That's quite interesting. So honestly how does the 4C rate in comparison ? Surely it's a far more substantial and livable package, while possibly giving away, what, 5% in ultimate track lunacy ?
I won't compare outright speed as the 4C is more exige v6 than elise cr speed. However in every element of driving both on road and on track the elise feels more planted, more predictable and more fun. Driving a lower power Elise round a tight twisty track like curborough is perhaps the most fun you'll have, the steering is actually a joyous thing to use on an Elise, on a 4c its a leash you need to hold on tight too when it tries to kill you under brakeing and when it discovers road camber.Its not more practical than a elise, quite the opposite, it has no cubbys, no room behind the seats and the boot is smaller. In true alfa fashion, in the winter the boot is unusable due to the hot engine one side and the cold atmosphere the other, things get coverd in condensaition. The car has done 2500 miles and the boot already smells like an old fish tank.
In summary, a 4c is a very attractive Italian facsimile of an Elise and the fact it falls someway short even when considering it's built by Maserati and has input by ferrari goes to show how special Elise's are.
Don't get me wrong I like the 4c A LOT, I loved the Elise.
.......... The Elise which I sold for 500 more than I bought it for after 2 years and 12,000 miles.
Edited by Richard-G on Thursday 15th January 08:17
Edited by Richard-G on Thursday 15th January 09:32
Richard-G said:
Driving a lower power Elise round a tight twisty track like curborough is perhaps the most fun you'll have, the steering is actually a joyous thing to use on an Elise, on a 4c its a leash you need to hold on tight too when it tries to kill you under brakeing and when it discovers road camber.
Interesting to see a first-hand comparison between the simple, pared back elise CR and 4c. It's a shame that people are so quick to dismiss the 1.6 as being 'dog slow', completely missing the point regarding driver engagement and providing a tool to learn to drive properly. milesr3 said:
Richard-G said:
Driving a lower power Elise round a tight twisty track like curborough is perhaps the most fun you'll have, the steering is actually a joyous thing to use on an Elise, on a 4c its a leash you need to hold on tight too when it tries to kill you under brakeing and when it discovers road camber.
Interesting to see a first-hand comparison between the simple, pared back elise CR and 4c. It's a shame that people are so quick to dismiss the 1.6 as being 'dog slow', completely missing the point regarding driver engagement and providing a tool to learn to drive properly. I can see why they don't sell thousands of them but they should sell a lot more. In essence its probably the car that would've been championed on old pistonheads before people that fascinate over interior materials and turbocharged diesels arrived. They see an N/A 1.6 and dismiss it as slow before even driving it. I think in one thread about the Club racer at launch one guy even commented that the steering wheel looked 'old'. In a market with enthusiasts like that then were all doomed.
chelme said:
CTE said:
For the silly comment, Baha blew hundreds of millions, not the staff at Lotus...some of whom have now left due to the idiotic/backward management style of the Malaysians.
Lotus have to do something to generate revenue while slowly developing some "new" products...lets face it is still one of the best road going trackday cars there are (and even better in the new guise), even if the original design is a few years old now...unless I am mistaken, Porsche have had their success because they have continually evolved the 911?...to name just one company.
Er...you don't know anything about Bahar, because the settlement reached between DRB-HICOM and Bahar was never published. Lotus have to do something to generate revenue while slowly developing some "new" products...lets face it is still one of the best road going trackday cars there are (and even better in the new guise), even if the original design is a few years old now...unless I am mistaken, Porsche have had their success because they have continually evolved the 911?...to name just one company.
Porsche demonstrably evolved: 911 - 911 3.2 - 964 - 993 - 996 -997 -991 all look different and boast an evolution of the theme. Nearly every component from the engine, to the bodywork was updated.
This is more like a resurrection of a dead model, but with some added body kit and stickers, so as others have pointed out, Lotus needs new models...
Edited by chelme on Wednesday 14th January 13:59
Edited by chelme on Wednesday 14th January 14:00
I think that CTE is questioning the wisdom of that programme, as opposed to the unconfirmed rumours regarding unpaid builders, house renovation, helicopter use and missing Evoras which allegedly formed part of the issues around his dismissal.
Personally, as an enthusiast, I thought some of Dany Bahar's plans made sense, whereas others (Indycar engines, choice of celebrity) were more questionable. The plans were initially derailed by Malaysian takeover law, which imposes a moratorium on capital expenditure during a takeover. That sudden stop seemed to derail Lotus, and once the takeover had gone through the time taken by the new owners to understand and assess what, in Lotus (as opposed to Proton, their real target) they had bought caused further delay and uncertainty.
I don't think anyone denies Lotus ideally needs new models. The sad reality is that at the moment they don't have the cash to do develop and launch them, although their underlying financial position is supposed to be a lot more secure than it was.
Although clearly not as long in the marketplace as the 911, your point about different variants looking different and being an evolution of the theme applies equally to S1, S2 and S3 Elise.
mwstewart said:
Power aside, just how much difference is there between these newer models and the originals? Are the newer cars worth the extra?
Im no expert but if you look at it like this, the basic elise S1 (1.8 k series) has 118bhp, the basic elise S3 has 140 bhp (1.6 toyota 1zr).the S3 is around 100kgs heavier due to airbags and various other bits and bobs so the power to weight has remained around static with improvements made in gearboxes in both action, amount of and shortening of ratio's.
if you take the case of the exige, S1 was 190 bhp, s2 is 190-260bhp and S3 is 380bhp. Again weights have gone up but so has reliability, speed and composure. The excitement has stayed the same.
put it this way, no one is getting out of an S1 and into a S3 and saying its boring or sanitized. Some lament the use of servo brakes but those guys are usually highly competent drivers.
what lotus should do is make a fancy new body, trim the interior out in leather and launch a new evora on the back of the existing industry standard chassis which it possesses (the one the mp4 12c was bench marked against).
they can keep evolving the elise, like porsche do wit their range.
mwstewart said:
Power aside, just how much difference is there between these newer models and the originals? Are the newer cars worth the extra?
I'd argue not. I compete in hillclimbs and sprints in my '99 S1 Elise. It has 135bhp (confirmed at a reputable rolling road) courtesy of decent breathing and a good 4-2-1 manifold and backbox, some S2 Bilsteins and a close ratio gearbox. I'm consistently faster than newer models with 200+bhp. My car is anywhere from 130 to 200kg lighter than the newer ones and, as such, it's plenty fast enough. Big power is great for pub bragging but it's worth feck all if you can't use it...Europa1 said:
chelme said:
CTE said:
For the silly comment, Baha blew hundreds of millions, not the staff at Lotus...some of whom have now left due to the idiotic/backward management style of the Malaysians.
Lotus have to do something to generate revenue while slowly developing some "new" products...lets face it is still one of the best road going trackday cars there are (and even better in the new guise), even if the original design is a few years old now...unless I am mistaken, Porsche have had their success because they have continually evolved the 911?...to name just one company.
Er...you don't know anything about Bahar, because the settlement reached between DRB-HICOM and Bahar was never published. Lotus have to do something to generate revenue while slowly developing some "new" products...lets face it is still one of the best road going trackday cars there are (and even better in the new guise), even if the original design is a few years old now...unless I am mistaken, Porsche have had their success because they have continually evolved the 911?...to name just one company.
Porsche demonstrably evolved: 911 - 911 3.2 - 964 - 993 - 996 -997 -991 all look different and boast an evolution of the theme. Nearly every component from the engine, to the bodywork was updated.
This is more like a resurrection of a dead model, but with some added body kit and stickers, so as others have pointed out, Lotus needs new models...
Edited by chelme on Wednesday 14th January 13:59
Edited by chelme on Wednesday 14th January 14:00
I think that CTE is questioning the wisdom of that programme, as opposed to the unconfirmed rumours regarding unpaid builders, house renovation, helicopter use and missing Evoras which allegedly formed part of the issues around his dismissal.
Personally, as an enthusiast, I thought some of Dany Bahar's plans made sense, whereas others (Indycar engines, choice of celebrity) were more questionable. The plans were initially derailed by Malaysian takeover law, which imposes a moratorium on capital expenditure during a takeover. That sudden stop seemed to derail Lotus, and once the takeover had gone through the time taken by the new owners to understand and assess what, in Lotus (as opposed to Proton, their real target) they had bought caused further delay and uncertainty.
I don't think anyone denies Lotus ideally needs new models. The sad reality is that at the moment they don't have the cash to do develop and launch them, although their underlying financial position is supposed to be a lot more secure than it was.
Although clearly not as long in the marketplace as the 911, your point about different variants looking different and being an evolution of the theme applies equally to S1, S2 and S3 Elise.
I am not alone in thinking that many in the market looking to buy a sports car appreciate the work that goes into engineering a vehicle fully, hence the relative success of vehicles like the Mazda MX5 (itself a relatively small company), Porsche 911/Cayman/Boxter, Jaguar F-type, and Alfa Romeo 4C.
There have been many attempts by other manufacturers throughout history to make a success of vehicles explicitly using external sources for engines. Wiessman, Artega, AC, Monteverdi, Jensen, to name but a few. All have failed despite offering great drives and in some cases real motorsport success. TVR began selling many more cars with bespoke Rover V8 units/using their own engines, for example -the period from Cerbera to the Tuscan was the most successful era for the brand before the company lost its customer base as a consequence of Trevor's exit. Once the company was bought by the Russian, it was doomed to fail.
The Porsche 911 evolved because it has no other choice but to. There is huge demand for this car because of a number of factors - most important being successful motorsport history, its unique engine, layout and the driving characteristics which derive therefrom, the perceived quality of the materials used as well as celebrity customer base. All major components of the car, from the engine, the transmission, the shape of the vehicle have been developed (in other words evolved) in house.
Remember, Lotus has been around for decades and has had the same opportunities to grow as Porsche.
Danny Bahar attempted get Lotus to become a car manufacturer that demonstrates all of these qualities -he came from Ferrari after all.
You say that S1,S2, and S3 are evolutions. Maybe the S1 and S2 Rover ones were but simply lifting a Rover engine and sticking a Toyota unit cannot really be said to be an 'evolution',its a different engine, nor can you say to evolve an engine by sticking a supercharger on it. Doing this is neither going to attract as much attention nor respect as developing your own engine/or bespoking an external unit, by working on its internals, is it?
I seriously considered buying an S1 Exige with the 190 unit. What drew me to this car, as it does to many others (hence the demand and their current price point) is the fact that the basic Rover unit was developed in house to produce 190bhp, and thus became unique, or bespoke for that car at the time. If I did not buy the Integrale instead, I would have bought one.
I see that a lot of people looking to buy smart, expensive and sporting cars (especially old and future classics) also appreciate Swiss watches and every classic car auction house one goes to, has the opportunity to pick up a Swiss watch too. Why? A Swiss watch is no better at telling the time than a Casio (which has relatively simple engineering), but people go for the mechanical watches because they appreciate the work that has gone into producing these jewel like items, the mechanical movements etc.
Lotus is not selling because people are not that impressed with the work that goes in to making what they are, despite the vehicle performing better than most other sports cars out there, including arguably the 4C. The same could be said for all other coach builders which used engines from other companies. They a re viewed as 'short cutting'.
I look forward to see what the 400bhp Evora is going to be like, but the fact we had a whole team assembled by Bahar (inc. Zimmerman) leave the team (and now Becker has jumped ship to AM), and considering we now have the old designer back there, I am not holding my breath to see much change.
chelme said:
Remember, Lotus has been around for decades and has had the same opportunities to grow as Porsche.
I think you are smoking crack.You write a lot but I don't think you know anything about how businesses work, certainly not the car business.
The statement above is astonishingly ignorant.
I analyse the financials of auto OEMs (among other things) for a living.
Let's take Lotus sales in 2000 just around the S2 launch: roughly 2,000 cars.
On the other hand Porsche sold 24k in North America and 22k in Europe in the year 2000.
So 23x as many.
If you knew even the first thing about making money designing and building cars, you would know that SCALE MATTERS.
In fact, I would say to a first approximation that almost the ONLY thing that matters is scale.
(Although being German or Japanese comes a close second.)
In 2013, Porsche had sales around EUR14bn and operating profit around EUR2.5bn, IIRC.
£500m or whatever might sound a lot, but in the scale of designing cars, it's a fart in the wind.
Say it was £100m a year.
That compares to Porsche spending around EUR1.5bn.
The success of the original 911 and it's global sales footprint allowed Porsche to build scale beyond the wildest dreams of Lotus.
And still Porsche nearly went bust.
Spending a few hundred million on an F1 campaign is MARKETING.
It bears almost no relation to the company's ability to make money selling mass market sportscars.
Also: "Mazda a small company"????? WTF???
They sold nearly 150k cars in just Europe in 2013.
They are absolutely enormous compared to Lotus.
Perhaps back in the 60s Lotus and Porsche were similarly sized. I have to admit, I don't know.
But certainly since the launch of the Elise they aren't playing the same game, let alone in the same league.
mwstewart said:
Power aside, just how much difference is there between these newer models and the originals? Are the newer cars worth the extra?
I've driven Elises spaced out between 1996 and the present day and they have certainly changed over that period of time. Every new iteration brings more refinement, and generally better steering, ride and handling. The biggest changes were probably from S1 to S2, when the car got about 20mm lower, started producing mild downforce instead of lift and finally got bespoke tyres better suited to the car's odd weight distribution and the resulting conflicting requirements of wet weather and dry weather balance. Over the years though there have been smaller but still significant changes, notably the switch to Toyota power in 2004, as well as constant tweaking of the car's ride and handling.The older cars do still have a certain appeal; the primary thing most people think of is weight, which has risen over the years, but you've also got things like non-servoed brakes, which I always preferred but which sadly died with the S2 111S in 2004/2005 (when I bought a low mileage one and ran it for 7 years). One trap that a lot of people fall into is thinking that because the S1 was noisier and lighter that it was somehow more of a driver's car. Yes, it had a purity to it and it was the lightest, but there were a number of things that were improved upon for the S2 that I'm certain Lotus would have done on day one if they'd had the budget - the S2 wasn't just a case of exchanging driver focus for comfort as it often is with mass market cars.
So, over the years whilst there's been a general trend of increasing livability, it's too simplistic to think of the driver focus as losing out commensurately with that change, because in many ways Elises have got better to drive, save for the odd thing here or there that some of us prefer, such as the non servoed brakes or the lighter k series engine. If I had an open choice I'd either choose a late model supercharged Elise, or another S2 111S like I used to have, which I felt was a sweet spot for all the things I like about Elises. What's more relevant though is that both those cars remain amongst the very best road cars I've ever driven.
This new Cup Elise looks fantastic - I've now got a 2-Eleven for track days, but there's no boot for your stuff (lunch, basic tools etc) and nowhere to hide if the heavens open (getting soaked at 9am four hours drive from home with a full track day still to run isn't funny!), so this Elise seems like a great solution to those problems
ETA: Regarding the Lotus vs Porsche argument, the two companies have always had a different core ethos and have gone in quite different directions. It's just a sad fact that an image of solidity, a luxury interior, bespoke 6 cylinder engines and to some extent an auto/tip option are valued more in the market than world leading ride, handling and steering, even if they're now coupled with pretty good solidity and reliability, at least as good as much of the competition. If asked to list the best road cars I've ever driven for my own criteria, which are mainly based on driving pleasure, the Exige V6 and 2-Eleven are at the top, the Elise second and the Evora third. I genuinely can't think of any other manufacturer that comes close, except Caterham perhaps. The Exige V6, for example, nails every single criteria that I rate a car by, and in some areas actually exceeds what I thought was possible.
Edited by RobM77 on Thursday 15th January 16:03
walm said:
chelme said:
Remember, Lotus has been around for decades and has had the same opportunities to grow as Porsche.
I think you are smoking crack.You write a lot but I don't think you know anything about how businesses work, certainly not the car business.
The statement above is astonishingly ignorant.
I analyse the financials of auto OEMs (among other things) for a living.
Let's take Lotus sales in 2000 just around the S2 launch: roughly 2,000 cars.
On the other hand Porsche sold 24k in North America and 22k in Europe in the year 2000.
So 23x as many.
If you knew even the first thing about making money designing and building cars, you would know that SCALE MATTERS.
In fact, I would say to a first approximation that almost the ONLY thing that matters is scale.
(Although being German or Japanese comes a close second.)
In 2013, Porsche had sales around EUR14bn and operating profit around EUR2.5bn, IIRC.
£500m or whatever might sound a lot, but in the scale of designing cars, it's a fart in the wind.
Say it was £100m a year.
That compares to Porsche spending around EUR1.5bn.
The success of the original 911 and it's global sales footprint allowed Porsche to build scale beyond the wildest dreams of Lotus.
And still Porsche nearly went bust.
Spending a few hundred million on an F1 campaign is MARKETING.
It bears almost no relation to the company's ability to make money selling mass market sportscars.
Also: "Mazda a small company"????? WTF???
They sold nearly 150k cars in just Europe in 2013.
They are absolutely enormous compared to Lotus.
Perhaps back in the 60s Lotus and Porsche were similarly sized. I have to admit, I don't know.
But certainly since the launch of the Elise they aren't playing the same game, let alone in the same league.
I said Mazda is a RELATIVELY small company, that is relative to other giants. The same could be said of Subaru.
You say 'Perhaps back in the 60s Lotus and Porsche were similarly sized' Yep, that was my point. They took different routes, one became a success, the other is failing.
The other point I made was that cars sell on 'brand value' something which derives from the amount of engineering which goes into the product -look at Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and now (thankfully) Jaguar. Remember under Ford Jaguar used a Mondeo platform and ford engines for the X-Type. It failed. It seems as the 'financial analyst' that you say you are, you failed to work this out. It was number crunchers which destroyed the likes of British Leyland, remember, not those with vision and determination to produce good quality products?
Porsche nearly went bust in recent history because it tried to buy VW, again mis-advised by financial analysts.
Be a bit more moderate with your language, before you go off on one, will you? Its not just about the numbers. Products sell on brand value.
Ferrari doesn't even need to place adverts in papers to sell, because the products speak for themselves.
chelme said:
I said Mazda is a RELATIVELY small company, that is relative to other giants. The same could be said of Subaru.
You said it in a rant about Lotus comparing them to Porsche in a sentence that mentions them both and Alfa.Nothing to do with the mass market giants.
Nice back-track.
chelme said:
You say 'Perhaps back in the 60s Lotus and Porsche were similarly sized' Yep, that was my point. They took different routes, one became a success, the other is failing.
If that was your point, why mention Bahar and the Elise?That's MY point.
Lotus can't compete with Porsche NOW and it couldn't when it introduced the Elise.
Your whole rant about Lotus failing to evolve the Elise and blowing £500m is completely irrelevant.
The damage was done decades AGO not in the last decade. Something you completely failed to mention until I called you out for talking b0ll0cks.
And of course, other analysts getting it wrong for British Leyland, Jaguar and the failed VW bid clearly makes my point invalid.
Perhaps if I had been involved in those deals you might have a point.
(Turns out I was actually on the other side of the VW debacle and STILL lost money... dammit.)
I was actually referring to the trouble they were in pre-Boxster and pre-Cayenne.
Now you are making a new and different point about brand value.
The strength of the Porsche brand just reinforces my point that the barriers to entry into the Auto market are HUGE for tiny English firms precisely because they have a far weaker brand - and most of that is to do with decades of investment by the larger companies who can afford to do it given their existing scale.
I am biased but I think Lotus have done an incredible job of producing cars that are exciting to drive and while not having anything like the build quality of a scale OEM, they are impressive nonetheless.
Honestly, demanding new models from Lotus every couple of years is like giving your corner-shop grief for not rolling out 1,000 stores and competing with Tesco.
This guy estimates it costs a cheeky $6bn to develop a new car from scratch.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/27/why-does-it-cos...
You are simply asking the impossible!
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